The strangest thing that ever happened to me with a watermelon

In the canal, not the one in Sinai, the one in Berlin

I don't know why, but lately, I've been thinking a lot about war and the military. I've been humming "Ash and Dust" and remembering stories from my service time in the army. One of my favorite stories is about the strangest thing that ever happened to me with a watermelon.

My first ambush as a commander was a scorching hot day, and the evening wasn't any better. It was at a base called Rotem (or Ras Al Bayada), on the coastal area in the northwest corner of the South Lebanon Security Zone. I can say a lot about it, for example, that it's on a cliff that slopes down to the sea above the Lebanese coastal highway that is carved into it. And I can say it's next to a village called Ras Al Bayada, which in Hebrew means "Egg Head." And I can say that below Rotem was a tremendous railway tunnel that once ran along the coast from Cairo to Beirut. And I can say many other things, but we have an issue with a watermelon.

So this watermelon thing started on one of the hottest days at Rotem, and just by chance, it was the day that supplies arrived. I don't remember how often supplies came, but we usually finished all the good stuff on the first day. That's how delaying gratification in the army is. Before leaving for the ambush, we used to do military drills with an officer. Our CO was a severe moron, so I won't mention his name, and whoever remembers him deserves it. Besides being a moron, he didn't particularly like me (I have no one to blame but myself because I was a moron, too), so this moron CO made us do drills.

One of the gear items carried a lot in ambushes, and the most hated thing to carry is a "medic pack," which is a slightly more beautiful name for a stretcher. The soldier who carried the medic pack, a more attractive name for a stretcher, was Golan. And Golan was a fellow soldier in my company, the Support company. And besides that, he was the nicest guy in the world.

So during the drills of the moron CO, I turned to Golan, who was carrying the medic pack, which is a slightly more beautiful name for a stretcher, and asked him to give me his helmet so I could attach it to the medic pack so it will be easier for him. I forgot to mention that there is a designated place for a helmet on the top of the medic pack. If you don't put the helmet in its designated place, then any movement with the medic pack ends in casualties for our forces because the entire medic pack becomes an uncontrolled load.

So I turn to him, and he says, 'Leave it. I don't need it.' I didn't give up and turned to him again, and he said, 'Leave it, Miler, I don't need it.' The moron CO started to get angry that we won't be ready on time, ordering us to stand in movement positions and put our helmets in place.

I grabbed Golan's helmet and tried to put it in the designated place for the helmet on the medic pack, which is actually a slightly more beautiful name for a stretcher. But the designated place was packed. So I asked Golan, 'You already have a helmet. Why do you need two?'

And Golan answers me .. 'Miller, this is not a helmet.'

'So what is it?'

'It's a watermelon.'

..

Of course, I told him he would throw the watermelon back in the kitchen as soon as the drills were over.

And, of course, as soon as the drills were over, the moron CO wanted to get rid of us as quickly as possible and sent us straight on our way.

And, of course, I didn't say anything to him about a watermelon that needs to go back to the kitchen.

And, of course, the highlight of the ambush was eating watermelon on the edge of the cliff of Rotem base in southern Lebanon on a scorching hot day as the lights of Tyre reflected in the calm waters of the Mediterranean Sea.

Of course.

Philadelpi

After the cancellation of the disengagement act from 2005 regarding the north of the Samaria area, and right before we go back to Gaza, I want to tell you about my last line (It is a common name for the period unit served in one area in the regular service in the IDF. Usually it lasts for 4 months) between December 98 and March 99 in the Girit (badger) position (I think this was its name if I remember correctly, there was also Thermite and Agama and other strange animals named posts).

But first, a disclaimer - my service was calm despite the country's turbulent security period. Still, my platoon in those years managed to always be in the quietest place, no matter where the army threw us, Nablus after Joseph's Tomb events in 1996, Hebron's evacuation, and Rotem on the Red Line in Lebanon. At most, a few stones or mortars and none of my platoon members were killed in battle.

A quarter of the recon platoon

I was a recon sergeant in the Mesayaa't company (The combat supporting company of the Battalion, which the recon platoon was part of). The CO visited the platoon once a month in the worst case and, in the best case, not at all. Some platoon leaders were released, and new ones came and went away to professional courses. In total chaos, we were left alone, like in Sodom and Gomorrah. Bibi was prime minister, joint tours with the Palestinian Authority were in place, real Arab coffee at friction points with Palestinian policemen, soldiers who sneaked to the Dahaniya airport to buy hummus, Palestinians with tractors that extracted IDF jeeps from the good-natured dunes of the Mu'asi, trips on the beach in Gaza, good morning shouts to the Egyptian soldiers in the towers beyond Philadelpi (This was the name of the road along the border between Egypt and Israel/Gaza) in short, Givat Hachalafon (An Israeli movie plagiarized from Robbert Altman's film - MASH.)

On one of the most boring nights, at the beginning of the line, I wrote on the endless concrete wall of the Philadelphi axis: "A day will come, the sun will rise, and I will be a Citizen - Mesayaa't 932 Granite" along with the emblem of the Mesayaa't at that time, which was a penis with a shining sun above it. I painted each letter on each segment of the wall. The width of each segment was a meter long, and its height varied between 3 to 9 meters, depending on the location. My wild graffiti stretched from a Thermite post along 53 segments towards the south, and the military life continued as usual.

Three months later, a few days before my release from the army vacation, the CO summoned me for an urgent meeting while I was on patrol! My ass entered the Girit post and then the CO's office [~!shouts!~] at a level that made the caravan tremble, and pieces of plaster fell from the ceiling.

"Your soldiers are drawing on the wall during operational patrols? Why is there no discipline in the platoon? What is this whorehouse..."

At the height of my ignorance, I asked him, "What are you talking about?"

In short, there was an officer tour with the division commander who shouted at the brigade commander, who shouted at the battalion commander, who shouted at him, and now he was shouting at me.

"Find me who did this!"

"What do you mean who? I did it!"

There was a brief silence.

"What do you think you're doing? Drawing a penis on the army's wall, extraditing the unit's name to Egyptians..." and so on, shouts.

When he calmed down, I told him, "It's been there for three and a half months. I did it at the beginning of the line. So if you were around, you would know."

He had nothing to say. In fact, he had only visited the company's posts twice and maybe once in the Philadelphi axis after getting shouted at.

And so, I spent my last night in the Israel Defense Forces repainting the endless concrete wall of the Philadelphi axis like the karate kid, with two of my soldiers escorting me (sleeping) in the jeep.

I finish with the blessing of "Oh Sharam Ashyakh, we have returned to you once again..." to all of you. (this was a song written after the "6 days" war when the IDF returned to the Sinai peninsula again after withdrawal from it in 1956)

#End #WhyIDrafted?"